06/25/2017

Baby Boomers - Looks Like We'll Stick with Old-Line "60 Minutes"

If this is how Megyn Kelly is playing out for the 7:00 P.M. NBC slot, god help the network when she's doing the 9:00 A.M. one in the fall.

Her glam and lack of audience connection are bad fits for prime time.

They will be a disaster for the morning when we are on only on our second cup of coffee.

This evening's "Sunday Night" had been even weaker than the disappointing interview with Alex Jones (which had much lower ratings that "60 Minutes" that evening).

The programming started out with the South Florida scamming of addicts, insurance companies and taxpayers.

Supposed treatment, which takes place in mostly 400 poorly supervised sober houses, can cost between $600K and $1 million. Yet few recover. Too many die. Fatal overdoses have become the new normal in Palm Beach County.

While that may be a subject of great interest for families of addicts - and addicts themselves - it's hardly a "grabber" for prime time audiences. When I was a probation officer in the Wayne County, Michigan narcotics unit, there was little compassion for addicts. There still isn't.

In contrast, "60 Minutes" featured the provocative dark side, as well as the promise, of artificial intelligence (AI). It it totally possible and not improbable that science could lose control of this disruptive force. You bet, the Frankenstein analogy came up.

Featured as part of the AI segment was robot Sophia. She adds to her knowledge base by talking with humans.

Of course, she could eventually connect the dots and become way smarter than the human species. What she does with all that is a wild card.

Other "Sunday Night" segments were penguins and the author of "Hillbilly Elegy" J.D. Vance.

While both could have been engaging, they came off as lacking production pacing and expert editing. As with the Erin Andrews' interview two weeks ago, there was a feeling of "hey, this is going on and on."

Unlike the hosts and interviewers on "60 Minutes," Kelly seems to be incapable of hard work. Or at least demonstrating signs of having done any before coming on air. The ethos of "60 Minutes" has always been the hustle to get the story and then to showcase every aspect of it just right.

After all, she had made it not only through law school and passing the bar exam. She also nailed an associate job practicing law at the high profile, highly successful firm of Jones Day.

Then, what happened?

Did Kelly default into the then-winning Fox News partisan cable TV formula of being blonde, beautiful and with long legs? There, at least during the era of Roger Ailes, that was plenty. Well, it's not enough in network TV.

My hunch: "Sunday Night" will be replaced by a crime drama similar to "Criminal Minds" or "Blue Bloods."

This is sad. Many of us, especially women, wanted Kelly to succeed. She had stood up to the Ailes' power structure.